Advances in Comparative and Transnational ADR: Research into Practice

Invited Speaker/Chair Profiles

Anselmo Reyes practises as an arbitrator. He was Professor of Legal Practice at Hong Kong University from October 2012 to September 2018. Before that, he was a judge of the Hong Kong High Court from 2003-12, when he was in charge of the Construction and Arbitration List (2004-8) and the Commercial and Admiralty Lists (2008-12). He was Representative of the Hague Conference on Private International Law's Regional Office Asia Pacific from April 2013 to July 2017. He became an International Judge of the Singapore International Commercial Court in January 2015 and an Overseas Bencher of the Inner Temple in October 2015.

Chao Xi is Professor and Vice Chancellor’s Outstanding Fellow of the Faculty of Law, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He specializes in comparative corporate law, securities regulation, and financial regulation, and has published widely in leading peer-reviewed international journals. His research has received significant funding support from the Hong Kong SAR Government Research Grants Council, the PRC Ministry of Education, and the Sumitomo Foundation. He is Professorial Research Associate of the SOAS China Institute, University of London, and a Member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIArb).

Deborah R. Hensler’s empirical research on dispute resolution, complex litigation, class actions and mass claims has won international recognition. A political scientist and public policy analyst who was the director of the RAND’s Institute for Civil Justice before joining the Stanford Law School faculty, she has testified before state and federal legislatures in the United States on issues ranging from alternative dispute resolution to asbestos litigation and mass torts and consulted with judges and lawyers within and outside of the United States on the design of class action regimes. Professor Hensler is the organizer of the Stanford Globalization of Class Actions Exchange, which is spearheading international collaborative research on class actions and group litigation procedures by scholars in Asia, Europe, Latin and North America, and the Middle East. Noted for her decades-long scholarship on asbestos litigation and class actions in the United States, her research and publications have described and interpreted the trajectory of mass claims world-wide. She is the lead author of CLASS ACTION DILEMMAS: PURSUING PUBLIC GOALS FOR PRIVATE GAIN (RAND, 200), co-editor of THE GLOBALIZATION OF CLASS ACTIONS (Sage, 2009) and co-editor and lead author of CLASS ACTIONS IN CONTEXT: HOW CULTURE ECONOMICS AND POLITICS SHAPE COLLECTIVE LITIGATION (Elgar, 2016).

At Stanford Prof. Hensler teaches seminars on complex litigation, transnational litigation, the legal profession, and research design for empirical legal studies and serves as associate dean of graduate studies. With Dean Emeritus Paul Brest, she co-founded the law school’s Policy Laboratory, and helped shepherd it in its early years. She has taught graduate level courses at Universidade Catolica de Lisboa, Hong Kong University, the University of Melbourne (Australia), Paris Dauphine University and guest lectured at Tilburg University (Netherlands), Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium), Nagoya University (Japan), and Universidad Torcuato di Tella (Buenos Aires).

Professor Hensler is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Political and Social Science and was awarded a personal chair in empirical studies of mass claims resolution by Tilburg University (Netherlands). In 2014 she was awarded an honorary doctorate in law by Leuphana University (Germany). She serves on the RAND Institute for Civil Justice Board of Overseers and on the advisory board of the Civil Justice Research Institute, a joint project of the University of California, Irvine and the University of California Berkeley Law School. In 2018 she served on the Academic Expert Panel for the Litigation Funding Inquiry of the Australian Law Reform Commission.

Dorcas Quek Anderson is an Assistant Professor in the Singapore Management University School of Law, with a research focus on dispute resolution and access to justice. A former District Judge and an accredited mediator (IMI, CEDR), Dorcas has conducted hundreds of mediation and early neutral evaluation. Dorcas' research has been published in journals including the Harvard Negotiation Law Review, Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution, the Civil Justice Quarterly and the Australasian Dispute Resolution Journal.

Eric Feldman’s expertise is in Japanese law, comparative public health law, torts, and law and society. His books and articles explore the comparative dimensions of rights, dispute resolution, and legal culture, often in the context of urgent policy issues including the regulation of smoking, HIV/AIDS, and natural and nuclear disasters. Feldman has twice been a Fulbright Scholar in Japan and has received grants and fellowships from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the American Bar Association, the National Science Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council, among others. He is the author or editor of books published by Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, and Harvard University Press, and his articles have appeared in journals including the California Law Review, Law in Japan, American Journal of Comparative Law, Los Angeles Times, Social and Legal Studies, Hastings Center Report, Lancet, Law and Society Review, and the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

Francis Law is an experienced international business consultant and expert of dispute resolution. He has more than 29 years of experience in Public Administration Management, Human Resources, Conflict Management and corporate development.

Dr. Law has conducted a wide variety of mediation cases. He is currently serving on a number of Panels of renowned International Mediation and Arbitration organizations in Hong Kong, China, Macau, Thailand, Vienna and Spain. He is an Annexed Mediator and Professional juror of the People’s Court of Qinghai, China. Since 2012, he has been appointed by the Movement of Hong Kong as the member of the Steering Committee on Mediation, and its cub-committee.
Dr. Law was conferred with the title of Honorary Doctorate in Law and holds a Master Degree in Business Administration. He is the Lead Trainer and the Lead Assessor of the DR profession in Hong Kong, Macau, Thailand, Bangladesh, Shenzhen, Qinghai, Guangzhou and Beijing. He is the Adjunct Senior Lecturer of the Law School of Macau University of Science and Technology and City University of Macau. He has trained up hundreds of International Mediation coaches, assessors, trainers and related professionals ion to dispute resolution in Hong Kong, the mainland and overseas. He also assists International Arbitration and Mediation Institutions to set up mediation policy and mechanism. With the support from thee Government of Hong Kong and the CCPIT, Dr. Law co-founded the Mainland-Hong Kong Joint Mediation Center (MHJMC) in 2015 which is the first diversified International commercial disputes resolution platform. Dr. Law is a columnist publishing articles in commercial and workplace disputes in local newspaper/ magazines. Since 2106, he has been leading delegations to attend the United Nation Commission of International Trade Law Sessions and presented professional comments.

FU Hualing’s research interest includes constitutional law and human rights, with a special focus on criminal justice system and media law in China. His recent work include National Security and Fundamental Freedoms: Hong Kong’s Article 23 Under Scrutiny (Hong Kong University Press, 2005) (co-edited with Carole Petersen and Simon Young) and The Struggle for Coherence: Constitutional Interpretation in Hong Kong (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008) (co-edited with Lison Harris and Simon Young). He teaches Corruption, Human Rights in China, and Legal Relations between Hong Kong and Mainland China.

GU Weixia serves as Co-Director of the Master of Common Law Programme at the Faculty of Law. Her research interests are in arbitration and commercial dispute resolution, conflict of laws, civil justice, and cross-border legal issues, with a particular focus on China, Hong Kong and Asia. She is an Articles Editor of the Hong Kong Law Journal.

Bilingual in English and Chinese, she has published widely in her specialized fields in both languages. Her recent works include The Developing World of Arbitration: A Comparative Study of Arbitration Reform in the Asia Pacific (Hart, 2018, co-edited with Professor Anselmo Reyes); Arbitration in China: The Regulation of Arbitration Agreements and Practical Issues (Sweet & Maxwell, 2012) and Legal Development and Interaction in Greater China (China Review Academic Press, 2009, co-edited with Professor Xianchu Zhang).

Prior to joining the Law Faculty, she was the youngest recipient in Hong Kong of the Fulbright Award from the United States Department of State and had been selected as an Honorary Young Fellow of the New York University. She had also held visiting scholar posts at Cornell and Fordham Universities where she researched and taught on commercial arbitration.

Keith Hawkins (LL.B Birm., Dipl Criminol., MA, PhD Cantab.) is Emeritus Professor of Law and Society at the University of Oxford Faculty of Law. He retired from active teaching in October 2006. His research interests are in the sociology of legal processes, and are concerned with legal decision making and the workings of governmental regulation in such areas as environmental control, and occupational health and safety regulations.

Kerstin Carlson is an Associate Professor at the University of Southern Denmark. Kerstin’s research considers the use of international criminal law to impact social narratives: her publications include Model(ing) Justice: Perfecting the Promise of International Criminal Law, Cambridge University Press 2018 and Hissène Habré on Trial (co-edited), Oxford University Press forthcoming 2019. She is currently working on The Justice Laboratory: International Criminal Justice in Africa and Beyond, Chatham House, forthcoming 2020, which surveys several international criminal justice mechanisms across Africa. Finally, she is beginning a project examining Danish anti-immigration policies to evaluate how law is being marshaled in contemporary debates on citizenship and multi-cultural social belonging.

Kwai Ng is a professor of sociology at the University of California, San Diego. His research interests include legal institution, legal language, and culture. He received his doctorate from the University of Chicago. Ng joined the faculty at the University of California, San Diego in 2004. He collaborated with Xin He on a series of articles on the Chinese grassroots courts, addressing topics including courtroom discourse, mediation, criminal reconciliation, domestic violence, and divorce petitions. Their co-authored book, Embedded Courts – Judicial Decision Making in China (Cambridge University Press, 2017), analyzes how Chinese grassroots courts operate in a precarious environment where the use of law has to be negotiated. Ng has also done empirical work on the bilingual legal system of Hong Kong, the use of court interpreters in the United States. His previous book, The Common Law in Two Voices – Language, Law, and the Postcolonial Predicament in Hong Kong (Stanford University Press 2009), explores how the introduction of Chinese into the common law system has reshaped the social and moral character of the law in Hong Kong. He is an editorial board member of Contexts and Law & Policy.

LIN Yang, graduated from Shantou University (LLB) and SOAS, University of London (LLM), is currently HKD Ph.D. candidate under the supervision of Professor Zhao Yun. His research mainly focuses on E-commerce Law, Dispute Resolution and Internet governance. He also has a wide range of interest areas, such as environmental law, consumer protection law, and comparative law. He is experienced in the area of e-commerce, successfully solved several disputes.

Ling Zhou. Dr. Ling Zhou is a Research Associate at the HKIAPS, CUHK, appointed following the award of her DPhil at the CSLS (Oxford) in 2018. She studied for her LLM at SOAS (London), graduating with Distinction. Her main research interests include civil justice and dispute resolution, socio-legal studies, and consumer protection. At the HKIAPS Dr Zhou also researches issues in constitutional and administrative law. Her DPhil thesis focuses on consumers’ access to justice in mainland China. She has conducted in-depth fieldwork in mainland China, and adopted a broadly comparative perspective in exploring various types of dispute process and their effectiveness in responding to consumer grievances and complaints.

Lola Akin Ojelabi. Dr. Lola Akin Ojelabi is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Law, La Trobe University, Australia. She is also the Director of LLB Programs at La Trobe Law School and an Australian nationally accredited mediator. She is admitted to legal practice in Nigeria and Australia.

Lola has researched extensively in the field of conflict resolution, particularly focusing on culture and alternative dispute resolution processes, alternative dispute resolution and access to justice, ethics and justice in mediation and conflict resolution and international law. Her research projects have included evaluation of the Broadmeadows Family Relationship Centre focusing on cultural appropriateness and family violence issues, the use of ADR by Community Legal Centres as a means of improving access to justice, justice quality and accountability in mediation practice, ethics and justice in mediation.
Lola is also interested in the role of international law in promoting global peace and justice particularly, how underlying values of the United Nations' Charter may assist with resolution or management of seemingly intractable conflicts.

Luigi Cominelli is Aggregate professor of Sociology and of Negotiation & Mediation at the University of Milan Law School. He is member of the Milan Bar (2006) and a certified mediator (2010). He received his J.D. and his Ph.D. in Sociology of Law from the University of Milan, and he has been a Visiting Fellow at Harvard Law School and Meiji University of Tokyo. He is currently chair of the Working Group on Civil Justice and Dispute Resolution of the ISA Research Committee on Sociology of Law. His research interests focus on professional mediators, civil/commercial mediation, negotiation, cognitive science, sociology of law and public administration.

Manuel A. Gómez is a Professor of Law, the Associate Dean of International and Graduate Studies at Florida International University (FIU) and also the Director of the LL.M. Program. He specializes in international arbitration, comparative complex litigation, and international law with focus on Latin America. He is an academic board member of the Miami International Arbitration Society (MIAS), leads the Law School Liaison Committee of the International Law Section of the Florida Bar and is the Editor-in-Chief of the World Arbitration and Mediation Review (WAMR). Professor Gómez has vast experience in transnational disputes mostly related to Latin America.

Mark Feldman’s scholarship examines the relationship between multinational enterprises and international economic law rights and obligations. Professor Feldman’s articles have been cited in reports by the OECD, UNCTAD, RIETI, the World Economic Forum, the European Parliament, the International Bar Association, and the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Professor Feldman’s articles also have been cited in many leading journals, including Arbitration International, British Journal of Political Science, Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, Georgetown Journal of International Law, German Law Journal, ICSID Review, Journal of International Economic Law, NYU Journal of International Law & Politics, Stanford Law Review, and Virginia Journal of International Law. Professor Feldman frequently presents on international economic law issues, particularly in Asia, including speaking engagements in Beijing, Xi’an, Nanjing, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Macau, Taipei, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Cebu, Manila, Tokyo, Kyoto, and Seoul.

Professor Feldman currently serves as a Global Associate at the National University of Singapore Centre for International Law, as a vice chair of the Institute for Transnational Arbitration (ITA) Academic Council, as a member of the ITA Executive Committee, and as a member of the Editorial Committee of the Yearbook on International Investment Law & Policy (OUP). Professor Feldman previously served as a member of E15 Initiative Task Force on Investment Policy (World Economic Forum/ICTSD) and as Chief of NAFTA/CAFTA-DR Arbitration in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State. As Chief, he represented the United States as a Respondent or non-disputing Party in more than a dozen investor-State disputes and provided legal counsel supporting the negotiation of U.S. bilateral investment treaties and investment chapters of free trade agreements (including TPP and U.S.-China BIT negotiations). His government experience also includes service as a law clerk to Judge Eric L. Clay on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Lesotho during South Africa’s transition to democracy. In the private sector, he practiced law for several years at Covington & Burling. He holds a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and a J.D. from Columbia Law School, where he was a James Kent Scholar, Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, and recipient of the Parker School Certificate in International and Comparative Law.

Martin Lau joined Essex Court Chambers in 1997. He regularly advises on South Asian, Middle Eastern law and Islamic law in the form of expert opinions and advice on commercial law, criminal/ human rights law and family law with regard to proceedings before the High Court of England and Wales, the County Court, Magistrates’ Courts, the Immigration Appeals Tribunal and the International Chamber of Commerce and US Courts as well as governments, for instance the UK’s Ministry of Defence, Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development, the EC, the EU, international organizations such as UNODC and UNHCR, and NGOs, including IUCN, IBA and ICJ.

His work experience includes visiting appointments at Harvard Law School and Nagoya University, frequent consultancies and international fact finding missions, for example to Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia and Iran, as well as being a full time academic at the School of Law, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, where he works as a Professor of Law. Since September 2016, has been the Dean of the School of Law of the Lahore University of Management Sciences [LUMS] in Pakistan (on leave from SOAS). As the co-editor of the Yearbook of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law he is familiar and up-to-date with legal developments in the Middle East and he has acted as Director of Studies for training programmes for judges and other legal professionals from the UAE, Qatar and China.

Martin is registered with the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) Dispute Resolution Authority of Law.

Matthew S. Erie (J.D., Ph.D.) is an Associate Professor of Modern Chinese Studies and Associate Research Fellow of the Socio-Legal Studies Centre at the University of Oxford. Professor Erie’s interdisciplinary work stimulates conversations between law and anthropology. His current research, funded by a European Research Council Starting Grant, examines China’s approach to law and development in weak and fragile states. Professor Erie previously held academic positions at Princeton University and NYU Law School, and he was a visiting scholar at the National University Singapore Law Faculty. He practiced law in New York and Beijing.

Michael Palmer is Emeritus Professor of Law at SOAS and Senior Research Fellow at the IALS (University of London). He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the HKIAPS (CUHK). His publications are mainly in the field of comparative legal studies, and cover a wide range of areas including legal history, family law reform, human rights, environmental welfare, civil justice and dispute resolution, consumer protection and criminal law. He is joint editor of the Journal of Comparative Law, two books series associated with the JCL, a number of edited collections, and co-author of Dispute Processes (CUP, 2005). \

Michal Alberstein, SJD Harvard University; LLB, BA, Tel-Aviv University; is a professor at The Faculty of Law, Bar-Ilan University, Israel. She is the Primary Investigator on a European Research Council (ERC) consolidator grant “Judicial Conflict Resolution (JCR): Examining Hybrids of non-adversarial justice.” She teaches jurisprudence and conflict resolution. She is the author and co-editor of numerous books and articles in English and Hebrew, including the following books: Pragmatism and Law: From Philosophy to Disputes Resolution (UK 2002); Trauma and Memory: Reading, Healing and Making Law (Stanford University Press, 2007);Jurisprudence of Mediation (Magnes 2007, in Hebrew); Alterative Justice: Mediating, Restoring and Healing through Legal Institutions (2014, in Hebrew); Trauma’s Omen: Israeli Readings in Identity, Memory and Representation (2016).

Nadav Davidovitch, MD, MPH, PhD (history and sociology of health) is an epidemiologist and public health physician. He is a Full Professor and Director, School of Public Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. His research focuses on health policy, one health/ecohealth, health and immigration, public health history and ethics, and global health.
Prof. Nadav Davidovitch is Chair of the Israeli Association of Public Health Physicians and founder of the Israeli Public Health Forum, an advocacy group promoting public health legislation, health equity and health in all policies. He serves on several international and national committees, among them: Executive Committee, European Public Health Association; Head of Middle East Chapter, International Society for Environmental Epidemiology, the Israel national advisory committee for health promotion and the Israeli Committee for Reducing Racism in the Healthcare System.
He was a Fulbright visiting professor, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University (2005-2006) and a visiting professor, School of Public Health, University of Illinois – Chicago (2008 and 2016). In 2017, due to his commitment to health equity and collaboration between Israeli and Palestinian partners he was nominated as a Honorary Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health of the Royal College of Physicians, UK. He authored or co-authored over 120 papers and book chapters, coedited six volumes and books and published his work in leading scientific journals, such as the New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, Clinical Infectious Diseases, Emerging Infectious Diseases, Journal of Pediatrics, Vaccine, Social Science and Medicine, and Law & Contemporary Problems.Nadja Alexander is Professor in the School of Law at Singapore Management University and Director of the Singapore International Dispute Resolution Academy, a platform for thought leadership in international dispute resolution.
Nadja is editor of the Global Trends in Dispute Resolution book series and the Kluwer Mediation Blog. Her work is published variously in the English, German, Chinese, Spanish, Russian and Arabic languages. Books include the award-winning International and Comparative Mediation: Legal Perspectives, Global Trends in Mediation, Negotiation: Strategy Style Skills, and The EU Mediation Handbook: Regulatory Robustness for Mediation Regimes.

Pablo Cortés is Chair in Civil Justice at the University of Leicester. He conducts research and teaches at Leicester University. He has advised the European Commission during the drafting of the ODR Regulation and ADR Directive and has been commissioned reports by the European Parliament and the Commission. Pablo is a fellow of the National Centre for Technology and Dispute Resolutions (UMass) and in 2012 he was a Research Fellow at Stanford University. He is also a member of the ODR Taskforce of the International Mediation Institute and of the ODR Advisory Group of the Civil Justice Council. Pablo has recently published his third book: The Law of Consumer Redress (CUP, 2018).

Shahla Ali's is Professor and Associate Dean (International) and Deputy Director of the LLM in Arbitration and Dispute Resolution in the Faculty of Law at the University of Hong Kong. Her research and practice center on questions of governance, development and the resolution of cross-border disputes in the Asia Pacific region. Shahla is the author of Court Mediation Reform: Efficiency, Confidence and Perceptions of Justice (Edward Elgar, 2018), Governing Disasters: Engaging Local Populations in Humanitarian Relief (CUP, 2016); Consumer Financial Dispute Resolution in a Comparative Context (CUP, 2013) and Resolving Disputes in the Asia PacificRegion (Routledge, 2010) and writes for law journals in the area of comparative ADR. She has consulted with USAID, IFC/World Bank and the United Nations on issues pertaining to access to justice, peace process negotiation training and land use conflict resolution. She serves as a bilingual arbitrator (English/Chinese) with CIETAC, HKIAC (ADNDRC), SIAC and is a member of the IBA Drafting Committee for Investor-State Mediation Rules, the DOJ Mediation Regulatory Framework Sub-Committee, the UN Mediation Roster and the FDRC Appointments Committee. Prior to HKU, she worked as an international trade attorney with Baker & McKenzie LLP in its San Francisco, California office. She received her JD and PhD from UC Berkeley in Jurisprudence and Social Policy and BA from Stanford University.

Sida Liu is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Law at the University of Toronto and Faculty Fellow at the American Bar Foundation. He received his LL.B. degree from Peking University Law School and his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago. Prof. Liu has conducted extensive empirical research on the legal professions in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. He is the author of many academic articles and three books, most recently, Criminal Defense in China: The Politics of Lawyers at Work (with Terence C. Halliday, Cambridge University Press, 2016).

Tania Sourdin. Professor Tania Sourdin is the Dean of the University of Newcastle Law School and was previously the Director of the Australian Centre for Justice Innovation at Monash University. She has led national research projects and in the past two decades has conducted research projects into aspects of the dispute resolution and justice system (in 12 Courts and Tribunals and 6 EDR schemes). Other research has focused on justice innovation, technology, ADR and systemic reform and includes various international consultancies. Tania is the author of a number of books, articles and papers, and has published and presented widely. She has retained a practice focus and has worked for more than 26 years as a mediator, 25 years in various tribunal positions and since 2014 has been the NBN industry dispute resolution advisor.

Zachary R. Calo is Full Professor of Law and Founding Faculty Member at Hamad bin Khalifa University in Doha, Qatar. He is also Research Scholar in Law at Valparaiso University (USA), Fellow of the Centre for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University (USA), Professor (Adj.) at Notre Dame Law School (Australia), and Visiting Professor at The Open University (UK). He has taught at Notre Dame Law School (USA), DePaul University College of Law, Hangdong International Law School (Korea), Strathmore University (Kenya). He holds a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, B.A. and M.A. from The Johns Hopkins University, Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, is doctoral candidate in ethics at the University of Virginia, and is completing an LLM in Dispute Resolution at the Straus Institute, Pepperdine University School of Law. He serves on the editorial board of the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion and is editor most recently of Agape, Justice, and Law (Cambridge University Press).

Xin HE is Professor at Department of Law, the University of Hong Kong. He obtained his LL.B. and LL.M. from Peking University, China, and his J.S.M. and J.S.D. degrees from Stanford University. His recent articles appear in American Journal of Sociology, Law & Society Review, China Quarterly, China Journal, and American Journal of Comparative Law. His monograph Embedded Courts: Judicial Decision Making in China with Kwai Ng (Cambridge University Press 2017) won the “Distinguished Book Award” by the Asian Law and Society Association. His research interests include Law and Society and Chinese Legal Systems.

ZHAO Yun is Professor and Head of Department of Law at the University of Hong Kong. He is also Chen An Chair Professor in International Law at Xiamen University (2015), Siyuan Scholar Chair Professor at Shanghai University of Foreign Trade (2012-14). He is listed as arbitrator in several international arbitration commissions.